Peter Garrett begins giving evidence to Royal Commission over bungled home insulation program

FORMER environment minister Peter Garrett has begun giving evidence at the Royal Commission into Labor’s bungled home insulation program.

Mr Garrett will be questioned over his role in the $2.8 billion stimulus program rolled out by the Rudd government in 2009.

His appearance follows fears that Kevin Rudd has been abandoned by his former colleagues and left to take the heat alone for the pink batts disaster, with Labor ditching plans to lodge a formal submission to the Royal Commission which would have defended its former leader and prime minister.

The program has also been blamed for at least one serious injury and 224 house fires

Mr Rudd, who is due to appear before the inquiry tomorrow, is reported to be furious that he appears to have been left as the “fall guy” for the bungled policy which resulted in the deaths of four people.

The Daily Telegraph has learned that shadow attorney general Mark Dreyfus was asked by the shadow cabinet more than a month ago to draft a submission on behalf of the Opposition and former government.

That submission would have not only voiced its protest at the terms of reference for the commission but would have also defended the role of Mr Rudd and members of his Cabinet who signed off on the home insulation program as a response to the Global Financial Crisis.

However, last week several senior Labor MPs learned that the submission had not been drafted and a decision had been made to ditch it, in an effort to distance the current Labor Opposition from the former Rudd Government.

The move has angered several senior members of Labor leader Bill Shorten’s shadow cabinet, those loyal to Mr Rudd, threatening to re-open divisions within the shadow cabinet.

Mr Rudd is due to return from overseas tomorrow to appear as a witness to the Royal Commission.

“I think there is a collective amnesia that exists that it was the cabinet that ticked off on this, not just Kevin, and they have decided that Kevin will be the fall guy,” one senior Labor MP said.

Justice John Dyson Heydon is leading the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption.Source:Supplied

But other members of the shadow cabinet asked why it would want to draw attention to the issue, claiming the Royal Commission was a deliberately designed political witch hunt by the Government and not a genuine inquiry into workplace safety.

A senior member of the shadow cabinet confirmed that no submission from Labor would be lodged with the Royal Commission and suggested that a decision had been made to try and distance the current Labor leadership from the fiasco.

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Labor’s concerns about the commission had already been well voiced in a series of letters from Mr Dreyfus to Attorney-General George Brandis. Labor argued that while it would co-operate, any formal inquiry should have focused on workplace safety.

“The Opposition wrote to the Attorney General on several occasions, in particular seeking a workplace safety focus to this Royal Commission, “ a Labor spokesperson told The Daily Telegraph online.

Former Federal minister Peter Garrett arrives at the Royal Commission into the Home Insulation Scheme today.Source:News Corp Australia

“The Home Insulation Program has previously been the subject of around eight independent investigations and reports.

“The reports of those investigations were publicly released by the Labor government, and their recommendations acted upon.

“In addition, coronial inquests in NSW and Queensland, as well as criminal prosecutions in three of the four cases.